Gordon Brown apology: recording call breaches trust but does not break law

Secretly recording a telephone call without consent breaches trust but is not
breaking the law.

Companies and public bodies responsible for private telephone systems are allowed to intercept calls for a wide range of purposes but must make "all reasonable efforts'' to inform callers.

However there is no legislation to prevent individuals such as Jacqui Janes, who received a call from Gordon Brown to apologise about his condolence letter over the death of her son Jamie in Afghanistan, from taping the call during the course of a conversation.

A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said: “Neither the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) prevent someone from recording a personal telephone conversation.

“The person receiving the call is generally free to tell others about the nature and content of the call and of course stories and conversations are shared in this way every day across the country. “What we do with the information we receive during a phone conversation is up to us as individuals.”

The recording of a call does not breach the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, in which it is an offence to intercept a communication in the course of its transmission by a public telecommunications system.

Interception involves modifying a system or monitoring communications so as to make the contents available to someone else “while it is being transmitted”.

In March 2006 Sir Ian Blair, the former Scotland Yard Commissioner, was forced to apologise to Lord Goldsmith, then attorney general, and three officials in charge of the inquiry into John Charles de Menezes, after it emerged he had secretly tape-recorded his private telephone conversations with them.